HIGHLAND CC GROUNDS

A week has passed since our annual spring greens aeration. We have had a mixed bag of weather, hot, dry, cold, wet and even frost! These conditions make it challenging to aid in healing, but with the more recent consistent warm temperatures we are seeing solid recovery. We were fortunate to have decent weather to complete the process on time, allowing us to fill all the holes created by the 1/2” hollow tines. As there are some minor depressions within some of the holes we will be beginning our bi-weekly topdressing program early next week. Our team is mowing and rolling our greens daily, while slowly lowering our height of cut to our summer norm. We all know that spring cultural practices are not popular among golfers, but these all important tasks are the building blocks for high performance greens conditions throughout the heart of the golf season. Check out this video produced by the USGA on Aerations effect on putting...

Last fall we utilized a “new to us” method of revitilization for our practice tee. Our contractor TDS,  fraize mowed the surface of the tee to remove organic matter as well at to aid in leveling. The tee was then aerified and seeded to a new variety of creeping rye grass. We chose this type of turf grass as research  shows rapid recovery and a low growth habit. We were able to get some great growth in the fall, but the tee is still not ready for traffic and full use. The plan is to utilize the mats until growth has filled in some of the voids etc. We will then begin to slowly set up hitting areas on the grass tee. For a while we will alternate between grass and the mats with a 50/50 ratio of use. Once the grass tee is established and is in adequate recovery mode, the practice areas will be back to normal. As always our membership’s patience is appreciated as we try to improve these areas for use.

At this time of year the question always arises “When are we going to open the golf course?” Each and every year the opening date is based upon a number of factors. Moisture: We at HCC immediately think of moisture. Being a heavy clay based property, we tend to hold onto the moisture from the winter snow, rains etc. The club has invested a large amount of capital funding into a drainage project that has mitigated a lot of previously experienced issues, but there is still a lot of property not completely drained. In the spring there is a large amount of water at or just below the surface of the turf due to the fact that it hasn’t dried out in over 6 months. Traffic on this turf can result in heavy, more permanent damage like root shear and rutting. To open the golf course we feel that waiting for at least one drying event prior to opening protects us from this type of damage. Growth and recovery: In the early spring the soil temperatures are obviously very low. Turf growth ...

It is always an exciting time when our team removes our greens covers. After an up and down winter in 2018, we are happy to report that all of our greens have come out of the winter in nice condition. This is always a nice step into starting the season off right, hopefully a sign of more positive things to come!

Heading into our 2018 golf season the HCC Grounds Department will be utilizing our blog again to increase our communication efforts with our membership. As time went on we found that a lot of our posts were repetitive and redundant. Now that we have had a hiatus, we will be posting updates and notices via this blog as well as on Twitter and our communication board at the pro shop/1st Tee. The majority of the posts on this blog will be detailed plans of cultural practices and efforts. We will provide information on when, why and how we perform these all important tasks throughout the golf season. The communication board will be utilized for day to day information pertaining to play. We hope that you bookmark this page and visit regularly. For up to date short postings about the golf course and our department follow us on Twitter at @HCCGrounds. Let’s hope this snow melts and we can get those covers off soon!

With the cooler temperatures this week, we will be performing some all important greens maintenance procedures. Monday evening (after the outside event) we will be doing a light grooming on both our greens and collars. This task will help to reduce the amount of lateral growth, therefore standing up the plants (for a better cut) and smoothing out the surfaces. Following the grooming we will be dry mowing all areas tonight to help clean up the debris. Tuesday morning we will be applying our biweekly light topdressing prior to play. Once the sand has dried, we will use our cocoa matt to drag the sand into both the canopy and the shallow grooming channels created by tonight's procedure. These practices in conjunction help to create a smooth, firm and healthy surface to putt on.

Our spring aeration of greens is just around the corner. We begin this Sunday evening at 4pm. We will work through the golf course in order, while utilizing temporary greens during the process. The process will continue on Monday. Our goal is to complete the full core aeration, core removal, rolling, over seeding, topdressing and brushing in of the sand before Monday night. Once the greens are finished we will be reopening them accordingly... Check out this short video produced by the USGA on the effect of aeration of putting surface quality.

Spring is here!! We opened the golf course just over a week ago and things are starting to shape up. We were fortunate to come out of the winter without damage to any of the surfaces on the property. This has allowed us to work away at typical spring tasks, as opposed to the last two seasons where we were pouring our time and labour into repairs, etc. Our staff have cleaned up the stump remains from our fall 2015 tree work and we are now in the process of sod prepping the areas. Our replacement trees will be delivered the week of April 25th, to be planted shortly thereafter. As we move forward our focus will move to our bunkers. Sand will be added and shifted where necessary. Other items on the list of "to do's" is to add irrigation to a few gardens, implementing regular mowing and cultural practices.  For the first week of opening we limited practicing to our range mats as the turf on the tee would not recover quickly enough. As of Monday, April 25th we are now onto th...

Spring has arrived and our greens covers have been removed. We are very happy to report that our greens (and the golf course in general) have come out of the winter in great shape! Shortly after Easter weekend our team will begin to clean up debris from all areas of play. Once the entire golf course is cleaned, mowing practices will begin. The first mowing of the season cleans a lot of the discoloured, desiccated leaf tissue off of the turf. This initial mowing increases the aesthetic appeal of the golf course greatly. Following mowing, we will begin to prepare our bunkers for play.  At this point we are not able to predict an opening date for the golf course. The forecast is integral to our pre-opening process. Rain, cold temperatures and frost can hamper progress when performing these all important tasks. Here is to a warm and dry spring!!!

The week ahead is looking like a nice warm up for HCC. There is a potential of us removing our greens covers in the near future. Our typical criteria for removal is a consistent forecast of above 5-6 C as a high and above 0C as a low. "Consistent" is the focus here, the current forecast follows this criteria to say the least. One of the major reasons for us removing covers this spring is plant protection from fungus. Every fall prior to covering and snow cover we apply a very high quality winter fungicide with the anticipation that it will last 4 months. This has always worked very well for us, in a cold, snow covered winter. Last fall we experienced a warm, snow free 6-8 weeks after our covers were installed. Couple those conditions with the very unseasonal warm thaws that we had this winter, the degradation of our fungicide is heightened. The longevity of the product is compromised under such conditions. Once we remove the covers, we will allow the greens to dry ou...

During the winter months our department keeps busy with a number of tasks required to help ensure the upcoming golf season goes smoothly. Through the course of the winter myself, our Assistant Superintendent (Paul) and our Equipment Manager (Alan) attend a number of professional development opportunities to further our knowledge, techniques and practices. We are also required to submit all of our Chemical application and Fertility data to the Ministry of the Environment to conform to the Integrated Pest Management Council. Another substantial task is the complete refurbishment of our course accessories, benches and equipment. All of our course accessories are painted, cleaned or replaced to ensure a functional and aesthetically pleasing setting is presented for our membership. Every single piece of equipment is serviced, sharpened and gone over with a fine tooth comb for safety defects, etc. This winter has been far different than the previous two that we experienced. Fortunatel...

Happy New Year! The winter weather has certainly arrived with sub zero temperatures and snowfall  accumulating...We were very fortunate this fall with a balmy forecast, work continued right up to the Christmas break is steady fashion. Our most recent phase of drainage work was completed in due time. Dry and warm conditions made for clean and quick work. Areas of focus this fall were the rough, fairway and green on the 14th, some smaller rough areas on 11, 17 and the upper landing area of the 3rd fairway. Our tree management plan is in full swing with the removals of some dead Ash trees. An important part of our tree plan is to re-plant a more desirable species in these key areas. The trees have been tagged for delivery as soon as possible in the spring. Our winter greens preparation plan was completed in due time as well. We have performed all of our fall cultural practices and winter prep tasks to give our greens the optimal chance of winter survival. In addition to our ann...

The fall is a great time to perform a number of necessary cultural practices. Our goal is to amend the upper portion of the greens surface with enough sand to help insulate the crown through the winter as well as removing and diluting organic matter. Below you will find a schedule of cultural practices that we aim to complete before the covers go on and the snow flies!!! Wednesday, Sept. 30th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt Tuesday, Wednesday October 13/14-Course Closure full core aeration with heavy topdressing. October 19th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt October 26th- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 2nd- Light topdressing followed by a Cocoa matt November 9th- Deep Verticut, followed by a sufficient topdressing. November 16th- Post Course Closure, Heavy topdressing followed by Deep tine aeration. Of course this is all in hope that the weather cooperates...happy fall!

Due to a very busy golf schedule and inclement weather, we have not been able to perform some very necessary cultural practices recently. The following is the schedule for this upcoming week: Tuesday a.m.: Venting of all greens with needle tines, followed by a roll. Thursday a.m.: Light topdressing of all greens, followed by a cocoa matt. Both of these practices are integral to a successful summer on our greens. Disruption to play will be minimal.

Due to the forecast for rain on Tuesday (during the day), we will be waiting until Tuesday evening to vent our greens. By postponing this practice we will gain the benefits of a post rain event, therefore allowing the greens to breath.

Hopefully we are through the rain..6+ inches in the last 7 days has made the golf course soft and lush...mowing has now resumed and we should be back to normal soon! With heavy, continuous rain comes compacted soils and root zones. To alleviate this compaction over the next week we will be performing some venting on our greens and collars along with some coring of our tees. Topdressing will also be applied to greens, tees and approaches in the next week. Cultural Schedule: Thursday, July 2nd - Topdressing of Greens and Approaches  & Venting of Collars Friday, July 3rd - Topdressing of Tees Monday, July 6th - Venting of greens with needle tines, followed by rolling Wednesday, July 8th - Coring of Tees, followed by topdressing Here is a link to a post about Greens Venting: http://highlandccgroundsdept.blogspot.ca/2014/06/cultural-practicestopdressing-and.html As always our team attempts to avoid disrupting play as much as possible, our membership's patience is always...

The reality of managing a golf course is that we need to deal with mother nature both in good times and in bad. This past weekend was our 2015 Best Ball tournament and I would suggest that we were arguably in the best shape of the season to date.  Tournament season is a lot of work but is also very rewarding as we are able to groom the golf  course to challenge both members and guests. Everyone on our team pitches in in their own special way to produce a great product...This is also the case when things go sideways. On Monday night a rather large thunderstorm rolled through HCC dropping close to 3" of rain and a considerable amount of debris left in it's path. I am happy to say that within 12 hours the golf course was able to be opened to walkers for play. The tremendous amount of rough and fairway drainage that has been installed is proving itself worthy by leaps and bounds. As of today (within 36 hours) we are able to mow all surfaces and allow golf carts out, wher...

It has been a busy couple of weeks here at HCC. Spring weather has appeared, disappeared and reappeared!!!! Temperatures nearing 30C followed by temperatures nearing 0C has all of us scratching our heads! Nevertheless we have forged on with our spring preparations for the golf course. As part of our tree management plan we have planted some new trees in strategic areas to increase the enjoyment of the golf course while not interfering with agronomics and playability. We have also sodded and seeded the areas remaining after the stumps were removed as part of this program. Our team is now into full swing with our typical mowing routines. The rough is growing at an alarming rate as it typically does in the spring at HCC. Our operators are working at full efficiency and have a goal of mowing the entire golf course 2X/week. Both of our first cuts being around the fairways and around the greens are also into our routine. We have been working on our overseeding program in the rough as well...

Our spring green's aeration went very well and Mother Nature is helping us along with some perfect weather for recovery. We have applied a variety of fertilizers and a surfactant to help aid in recovery. Part of our post aeration program is to alternate (day to day) rolling the greens and mowing the greens. During the first 7 days after the event the greens will be slower and shaggier. This is what is known as "short term pain for long term gain". We will reap the benefits of this aeration for most of the golf season. Once the sand has settled and the holes have closed up we will begin to lower our height of cut as we move forward with our greens management plan. The greens that we are all used to at Highland will once return from this all important cultural practice.

It is no surprise to our membership that we have had our challenges with our bunkers. Compaction and inconsistent sand depth are the top two. Through a number of discussions with our Greens Committee and Director of Golf we have devised a plan going forward to alleviate the issues that we experience with these hazards. First and foremost we will continue to monitor each bunker for sand depth and condition. The goal is to have 4 inches of cultivated sand at the bottom of our bunkers. Inclement weather can make consistency a challenge as sand can wash out and become to firm at the bottom. Going forward into 2015 we have devised a plan to cultivate the bottoms of the bunkers with a rototilling attachment. This method will help to alleviate the compaction that can occur during wet or rainy periods. The addition of a Sandpro mechanical bunker rake will also help with regular cultivation and consistent grooming of the bunker bottoms. In coordination with these programs for maintenance,...